In League of Legends is “Yuumi” quite hated. Especially the professionals can’t stand the cat, as she can connect with another champion and thus become untouchable. Riot Games has taken the feedback into account and announced a major overhaul. However, this misses the real problem, according to the players.
What is the problem with Yuumi? Yuumi is a supporter who can attach herself to other champions. Once she sits on a champion, she can no longer be targeted but can still use abilities. Thus, she heals and buffs her ally while also dealing damage. Her ultimate ability “Final Chapter” is particularly strong, allowing her to hold enemies in place.
At the Worlds 2022, Yuumi had the highest ban rate of all champions at 85%. The German Twitch streamer Frederik “NoWay” Hinteregger even called for a global ban on “this garbage”.
However, overall, Yuumi has rather weak stats. Looking at ranked matches from Iron to Challenger, she has just a win rate of 47.2% (via LeagueofGraphs). Especially the professionals fully exploit the potential of the champion, while she is often useless in the lower ranks.
What is Riot doing now? They want to completely overhaul Yuumi. Their goal: The champion should help newcomers to cope better with LoL while simultaneously becoming weaker for professionals.
However, the planned adjustments are not well-received.
“How can you learn the basics when you are untouchable?”
What exactly will be changed? The exact details are not yet final, but the core mechanic of Yuumi – that she can sit on other champions and thus becomes invulnerable – will remain. However, she is supposed to deal less damage and rather focus on buffing allies.
Riot wants to adjust her abilities so that opponents can more easily avoid them. This was very difficult, especially when Yuumi sat on a highly mobile champion.
What are the players criticizing? At first, many players are surprised that Yuumi is supposed to be a beginner champion like Garen or Annie. After all, she costs 6,300 Blue Essences and thus already requires a few hours of play.
But even if beginners play her, her style is said to be rather counterproductive, says Reddit user Plainnoob:
How can you learn the basics when you are untouchable for the duration of a game? Yuumi is neither an Annie nor a Garen. Yes, you may need the lowest skill in the game for her. But she is also the most niche character in terms of mechanics. The skills are clearly not transferable. The permanent untouchability is a noob trap that will lead you to fail with any other champ.
Players further criticize that the adjustments by Riot Games will not change the hatred for Yuumi, as the core problem remains: She remains untouchable as long as she sits on a champion.
Some players predict that with the planned adjustments, Yuumi will become even weaker in the lower ranks, while remaining annoying for professionals.
What are the players demanding? On Reddit, there are various solutions proposed for Yuumi. One player suggests that Yuumi simply takes on part of the damage when she sits on another champion. This way, the ally would take less damage, and Yuumi herself would have to watch out to jump off in time before she dies.
Another player suggests that Yuumi can only sit on a champion for a limited time. This would significantly increase the skill level, as it would require planning when to leave the ally, so as not to catch an even worse moment when it happens automatically.
In any case, almost all players on Reddit agree that the planned changes are going in the wrong direction. However, how they will turn out concretely will only become clear in 2023.
Balancing is a sensitive topic in LoL. For example, the lead balancer at Riot Games tried out a weak champion himself and was promptly banned for it:
LoL: Riot bans its own important employee for trying out the worst champion 20 times in a row
